


The Repeated Practice of Cauterization

by Trixree



Series: On Branding [2]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Anal Sex, Dom/sub, Friends With Benefits, M/M, Multi, Oral Sex, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Praise Kink, Questionable Coping Mechanisms, Rough Oral Sex, Sex Work, Size Kink, Sub Vinsmoke Sanji, Unsafe Sex, Zoro is out of his depth, but he wants to help, cross dressing, sex as coping
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-13 19:14:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28533501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trixree/pseuds/Trixree
Summary: Most days, Sanji considers himself a bundle of neuroses at best.He smokes a reasonable amount to distract himself from the anxious urge to play with his hair or bite at his nails or chew his lips, he wears layers and suits to avoid direct skin-to-skin contact he isn’t prepared for, and most importantly, he never ever looks at his back in the mirror. Usually these things work to keep him intact, to keep him here and sane and passably whole. But some days, they don’t.And that’s when Sanji needs it. Namely—the sex.
Relationships: Roronoa Zoro/Vinsmoke Sanji, Vinsmoke Sanji/Original Character(s)
Series: On Branding [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2090193
Comments: 9
Kudos: 135





	The Repeated Practice of Cauterization

**Author's Note:**

> A continuation in The Place of A Brand AU where Vinsmoke Judge branded his children with their numbers. This fic can be read on its own but I wouldn't recommend it. Things might seem very OOC without the first part. 
> 
> Many many many thanks to Stoat and Mars for the beta-ing and to the ZoSan server for enabling me 
> 
> Slight content warning for mentions of previous underage sex

The current situation is becoming increasingly intolerable. 

When he agreed to join this rubber maniac’s pirate crew, Sanji had done very little actual  _ consideration  _ of what such a thing would mean. Here's the thing: back at the Baratie, he had a routine established. All of his shameful little habits and escapes were carefully plotted out endeavors. He always knew where his next release was coming from. Or, barring that, he at least knew what he had to do to  _ get it  _ and get it  _ good.  _

Most days, Sanji considers himself a bundle of neuroses at best. He smokes a reasonable amount to distract himself from the anxious urge to play with his hair or bite at his nails or chew his lips, he wears layers and suits to avoid direct skin-to-skin contact he isn’t prepared for, and he never  _ ever  _ looks at his back in the mirror, and usually these things work to keep him intact. To keep him  _ here  _ and sane and passably whole. But some days, they don’t. And that’s when Sanji needs it. Namely—the  _ sex.  _

There’s no better way to bring his brain back to his body like a dick up the ass. 

There was always a customer or a passing sailor or a bar just the right side of shitty he could turn to on days like that—a rough, nameless encounter to be had in a bathroom or a closet or an alley, on a few notable occasions. And that’s exactly how Sanji likes it best: rough and nameless. 

He had a system worked out, despite how much the knowledge of Zeff’s disapproval (and general disgust towards the more…  _ masculine  _ side of Sanji’s proclivities) burned him with a deep, ever-present shame. It worked better than anything else ever had for him. 

But stuck on the Merry with a sexless Captain, a gorgeous lady whose interests lie only in other ladies, a literal princess, a guy harboring a mile-wide crush for his lady back home, and a sentient moss-ball, it is simply no longer an option. 

He’s on his fifth fucking cigarette of the day for fuck’s sake and it isn’t even  _ noon.  _

“Sanji-kun, are you alright?” Nami asks, passing him her empty teacup. The galley is otherwise empty, and Sanji likes to think he knows her well enough by now after weeks of sailing together to know that she’s planned this. 

“Just peachy, Mellorine!” 

Nami gives him a flat  _ look.  _ “Sanji…” 

_ Gods,  _ Sanji loves her. He sighs, catching himself at the last moment from tugging at his hair absently. Nami absolutely catches the aborted motion and her face softens. 

“You  know  you can talk to me, yeah?” she offers. And he does—there’s a reason Nami is one of two people that know what lives on his back, even if she does not know the name of the monster that made it. 

“Of course, Nami-dear. It’s nothing you need to worry about. Just…” Sanji gestures vaguely. “Feeling a little cooped up, is all.” 

“If you’re lying to me, I will charge you 50-belli per day of dishonesty,” she warns him with a sharp jab to the chest. 

He gasps, fainting to the side as if struck. “Dishonest? To  _ you?  _ My love, I could  _ never!”  _ And he  _ hates  _ how the lie tastes in his mouth. But, then again, he’s hating himself a lot these days, so what else is new? 

* * *

Fresh off of Drum Island and with a new, exceptionally cute little doctor in tow, the crew comes upon a heavily industrialized port-town under strict (yet fairly corrupt) marine oversight called  _ Bake.  _

( _ “Like ‘bake’ a cake?”  _ Chopper had asked, eyes wide and glazed over with the prospect of sugar. Unfortunately, nothing about this trip seems to be so sweet.)

Sanji says  _ corrupt  _ marine oversight, as it is ridiculously easy to sail into Bake’s Northmost port. Almost  _ too  _ easy. 

“What is it, shit-cook? You’re looking more high-strung than usual. And that’s saying something,” Zoro taunts, striding up next to him at the ship’s rails, smelling of sweat and brute and  _ ugh— _ Sanji needs to get laid  _ soon  _ or he might start lusting over  _ Zoro _ of all people.  __

“Something’s not right,” Sanji offers, gesturing with his lit cigarette towards the docks they’re steadily approaching. “This is too easy for a town flying the Marine flag.” 

Zoro narrows his eyes at him. “Who knows, maybe they’re scared.” 

Sanji can’t help but scoff. “Of what?  _ You?  _ Carue? Please.” 

Whatever it is, Sanji hopes he can at least sneak away from the others for long enough to find some sort of release before things inevitably go sideways. 

* * *

The marine officials of Bake tightly control its borders, policing any immigration or travel under a strict policy of “no one in, no one out” unless, of course, you can  _ pay.  _ In that case, pirates and all manner of fugitives are welcome, for the right price. 

By letting them through easy as pie, the marine officials secure themselves quite the hefty payoff when it comes time for them to attempt to  _ leave.  _

Nami explains the whole scheme with furious, sweeping gestures. Vivi, for her part, looks understandably anxious. Luffy doesn’t seem to really understand things at all

The price to  _ get out of Bake  _ is bafflingly steep. With their crucial element-of-surprise for the upcoming conflict in Alabasta on the line, there’s hardly any way Luffy can punch his way out of this one, leaving them little choice. A supremely irritated Nami (and a reluctant but somewhat reasonably acquiescing Luffy) had scattered the crew to make as much money as possible on Bake in as little time as they could. 

They are to meet up again by noon the next day. 

After winning the island’s  _ only  _ cooking competition by a landslide, emptying the wallets of two predatory douchebags only after firmly kicking their asses for daring to touch a woman when she told them  _ no,  _ and pawning the only cooking knives that he could bear to part with alongside a pair of nice cufflinks, Sanji hit a  _ wall _ . 

A mere six hours after Nami’s command, Sanji slunk towards the red-light district (which really consisted of the entire godforsaken island, to be honest) with something like anticipation curling in the base of his spine. 

If he gets laid  _ and  _ gets cash out of it, well… that’s just a win-win, isn’t it? 

* * *

It’s surprisingly easy to get what he wants. 

Sanji approaches a couple of sex workers here and there, orienting himself with the lay out of things. After a couple of misses, he finally finds a lady—” _ I’m Kim, but call me Kimmy when I’m working”— _ that doesn’t outright laugh at him when he asks where  _ boys  _ go to turn tricks in Bake. 

She’s even kind enough to loan him some clothes. A friend of a friend who does drag on the weekends had left them at her apartment and, as luck would have it, they’re a passable fit. 

From there, things are all smooth sailing. Ridiculously smooth sailing, even. Sanji’s only done the cross-dressing thing a handful of times, but it’s easy to fall back into, especially when he’s as  _ desperate  _ for it as he is now. One bar and two men later, he’s feeling  _ ridiculously  _ good, high in the way that only good sex gets him. 

One of the men had fucked his face, pulled his hair, and called him  _ “honey”  _ and with spunk still cooling on his face, there’s not a name in the world that sounds  _ better.  _ The man after him had fucked him up against the wall of the men’s room, all rough hands and rougher stubble and a punishing pace that ended with fingers shoved in Sanji’s mouth to keep him reasonably quiet as the guy painted his insides with white. 

Perched on the bathroom countertop with his borrowed skirt all rucked up around his waist, his dick still sticky with his own release—stolen by his own feverish hands while he was taken from behind—Sanji feels better than he has since after that fight with the fishman back on Cocoyashi, all giddy triumph and glowing invincibility even despite the beginning associated aches. 

The crumpled bills in his hands are just a bonus, easily double what he made from his earlier less unsavory activities. 

It feels like it’s bound to be a good night. 

Sanji lights up a cigarette, tucks the bills into his borrowed bra, and smiles. 

* * *

Sanji is intimately familiar with shame. From his earliest childhood memories where he is taunted and beaten for his weakness to being so hungry he was willing to kill and eat another  _ human  _ to being caught doing  _ that sort of thing  _ by Zeff… Well, Sanji is  _ intimately  _ acquainted with the sticky, acrid way that shame burns ones’ stomach and turns ones’ chest into a tight bundle of aches. 

Yet, somehow, there has never been a greater shame than _ this. _

“Um,” Zoro blurts where he’s standing in the doorway of the bar. 

“Hey baby, don’t stop,” the man between Sanji’s thighs grouses, clearly irritated that his lapdance has been interrupted if the rough way he palms at Sanji’s ass is any indication. 

The whole bar (seemingly sensing the sudden change in atmosphere) has gone silent, because clearly fate has a  _ huge _ hard-on for making Sanji’s life as impossibly difficult as it can get. Or, perhaps it’s the downright  _ deathly  _ aura emanating from the doorway that does it. 

And to think, he had been having such a good night. 

“Uh,” Sanji stutters, dropping all pretense of the higher, more feminine voice he had adopted just moments earlier. 

If not for the fact that he’s been caught in an  _ extremely  _ compromising position, the mess he’s made of himself alone would betray him. Taken together, it all must look particularly  _ obscene.  _ There are hickies high on his neck and smeared down his collarbones—bright purple points of pure and plain debauchery. His hair is sweaty and nasty, having been tugged at, gripped, and petted through by at least five different pairs of hands. Hell, there’s probably some dry spunk in there. His kohl eyeliner is smudged to shit from his third round of the night, his lips are red and raw, and he’s suddenly  _ brutally  _ hyper-aware of his lack of underwear and the disgusting, sticky wetness between his cheeks and his thighs. 

Minutes ago, the knowledge that Sanji has been so thoroughly  _ used  _ tonight that it’s steadily  _ leaking  _ out of him was enough to have him straddling the peak of ecstasy, hard and twitching with oversensitivity even as he chased his next release. Now… It’s  _ vile.  _

The man whose lap he’s still frozen straddling shoves Sanji roughly off of his lap and onto the floor, perhaps out of some evolutionary survival instinct responding to the sheer ferocity of Zoro’s rage. 

Sanji’s reflexes, completely  _ shot to shit right now,  _ because  _ hello, acute panic  _ do literally nothing to help him and he lands flat on his ass on the sticky wood planks with a dull  _ thud  _ that reverberates all the way up his spine with a sharp spike of pain. 

Zoro stares at him in a mix of frozen  _ horror  _ and downright  _ fury  _ from the doorway. Oh, and what a picture he must make—Sanji’s wearing a black corset and ridiculous black kitten heels, his red double-breasted lacy pin-up dress upturned around him on the floor, showing  _ way too much  _ of all his skin underneath and not much of anything else. (Or at least, Sanji  _ prays  _ not much of anything else.) Zoro would have to be completely and utterly blind to not notice the fucking  _ eyeliner,  _ as dramatic and overdone as it is—-and he’d have to be  _ even stupider  _ to miss the red lip color that has smudged nearly cheek to cheek. 

Sanji feels suddenly like he’s going to puke. 

_ Move, limbs. Move.  _ His shaking limbs do not comply. 

“You okay?” Kim comes up swift at his side like a wraith materializing out of the shadows. 

Sanji’s tongue sticks like glue to his mouth. He can’t look away from Zoro, still frozen in the entryway.  _ Surely life cannot be this cruel?  _

Kim grabs him under an arm and hauls him to his feet. 

“God, your skinny ass…” she gripes, steading his wobbling frame. Sanji making it to his feet seems to spur Zoro into action. He starts to stalk swiftly across the bar and Sanji’s heart leaps into his throat. 

“You know him?” Kim asks at the same time as the shove-prone-client leaps to his feet, does up his belt and shouts about getting a “fucking refund” followed by some choice words that  _ Sanji  _ wouldn’t even repeat. 

His tongue is still stuck to his mouth. Hell, he’s still fucking shaking in his heels. Nausea churns heavy and painful through his gut, threatening to send him to the floor again under the weight of this  _ mistake.  _

How the  _ fuck  _ did he let this happen? 

Zoro stops mere  _ steps  _ from him and Sanji suddenly understands the moniker “the demon of East Blue.” Zoro doesn’t even spare a glance to the man, those fucking  _ eyes  _ fixed on Sanji’s own like even an entire army could move them. 

“Leave,” he growls. Sanji fucking  _ hates  _ himself for all that his voice in  _ that  _ tone has him feeling aroused again, even despite all the choking, cloying shame. 

“Fuck you, buddy! I paid for this shit and I’m getting a refund from this bitch, so help me!” 

Zoro turns his head slowly, almost as if he’s bored. “Make me tell you again.” The heavy  _ ka-shink  _ of a sword unsheathing punctuates his threat. “See what happens.” 

Face screwed up in embarassed fury, the man stalks off, but not before spitting at Sanji’s feet. 

“Do you know him?” Kim whispers frantically, nails biting into Sanji’s arms like little claws. 

“Y-yeah,” he manages under the weight of Zoro’s piercing stare. “I do.” 

A gruff hand seizes him by the upper-arm, grip unyielding. “O-oi!” Sanji protests, but Zoro starts to drag him off anyway. Although his first instinct is to lash out and kick the moron-marimo upside the head for this, a sudden, horrible  _ gush  _ of what can only be cum running down his thigh reminds Sanji abruptly of why that would be a horrible,  _ terrible  _ idea. 

And so, Zoro drags him out of the bar. 

* * *

Sanji loses his virginity at fourteen. 

His teenage growth-spurt made him all long, lanky limbs and stubble and it was ridiculously easy to sneak himself into bars and other unsavory places under Zeff’s nose. Smoking was a nasty habit two years in the making and on a particularly awful day one Summer, Sanji had been determined to pick up a new one. Drinking sounded as good a vice as any, and before he knew it, he was pleasantly wine-drunk and making quick company. 

A man had sat down at the bar to Sanji’s right and ordered a drink. He was broad and vaguely muscular in a way that betrayed him as a sailor or a fisherman at first glance. His full beard left the most  _ wonderful  _ goosebumps when he had brushed his lips down Sanji’s neck later that night. 

“Aren’t you a little young?” The man had asked, gruff in the face of Sanji’s blatant staring. 

“How young do  _ you  _ think I am?” he had challenged, stoking the fire that had started to burn in him the moment this guy—no, this  _ man _ —sat down at a distance close enough to touch. 

The rough once-over felt as tangible as hands on his skin. 

“Too young,” the man answered. 

He’d fucked Sanji’s face later in the bathroom anyways. 

And once it was over, and all that was left was the lingering bitter taste in his mouth and the electricity under his skin, Sanji’s mind was—for once—blissfully, utterly quiet. 

There was no old taunt of  _ failure,  _ no old-aches and echoed insults, not the cool indifference of Vinsmoke Judge’s eyes on him, judging him as  _ weak,  _ and not the frigid chill of the dungeon he was left to rot in. No hunger pains. No anguished look in Zeff’s eyes as Sanji sobbed and begged him to mutilate the brand on Sanji’s back. Only a high, buzzing pleasure and a bone-deep  _ peace.  _

The addiction he set out to find was not at all the one he acquired. 

* * *

“What the fuck was  _ that?”  _ Zoro hisses between clenched teeth, dragging him bodily into a narrow alleyway and shoving him hard towards the wall. 

Sanji steadies himself with his hands braced flat against the cold brick.

“Surely you’re not  _ that  _ stupid, are you, Marimo? It starts with a ‘se-’ and ends with a ‘-x’,” he bites back, a warm wash of fury overtaking the blood curdling shame. 

_ How dare he?  _ Sanji seethes.

“Cut the shit, Cook! Are you stupid?” 

_ “Me?  _ Am  _ I  _ stupid? What gives you the fucking  _ right  _ to involve yourself with what I do in my private time?” His anger is explosive and ugly, and his heels click against the pavement with every stride forward into Zoro’s space. “It’s none of your business who I fuck or how I fuck, got it? And for you to—to— _ humiliate  _ me like that—!” 

“What gives me the  _ right?”  _ Zoro barks out a laugh, a single harsh syllable as he pushes right back. “You’re  _ our  _ fucking cook and therefore  _ my  _ fucking problem. It is  _ exactly  _ my place to worry about this crews’ wellbeing and that absolutely includes whatever the fuck you think you’re doing here.” 

“What the fuck  _ I  _ think I’m doing here? I’m getting  _ laid,  _ Zoro!” 

“Do you seriously think this is what Nami meant when she said go earn some quick cash? Do you think for one second she’d ever want any of us to do something so goddamn dangerous?” 

They’re shouting at each other, now— a rough back-and-forth of gnashing teeth and flying spit. 

“Dangerous?! Are you out of your  _ mind?  _ It’s just sex!”

“With complete  _ strangers  _ in a marine-controlled town, you fucking swirly-brow idiot! Any asshole could get you in a vulnerable position and kill you without so much as a fight!”

“‘Any asshole’, huh? So I’m a  _ whore!?  _ Is that what you think—”

“—And I’m willing to bet that you didn’t even bother to use protection, you fucking moron!” 

Sanji reels back as if he’s been physically slapped. His earlier anger fails him all at once, and he sputters uselessly, “It doesn’t feel as good—”

Zoro shoves him once by the shoulders,  _ hard,  _ knocking Sanji’s back into the cold wall of the building behind him. The impact rattles his brain in his skull and sends a sharp pain sparking from his ass up his spine, leaving him breathless for a critical second, allowing Zoro to get in that much closer and fist a hand in the front of his dress. 

“You know what else doesn’t feel good? Contracting a fucking  _ disease  _ and growing pus-leaking warts all over your fucking dick! God, how stupid can you be? You can get really fucking sick from this shit! Hell, you could die! So go ahead, tell me how  _ safe  _ you were being!” 

And all at once, Zoro lets him go. Sanji sags into the wall, heart  _ pounding  _ as he stalks a ways away, crossing his arms like a disappointed parent and— _ stop, don’t think about it.  _

“How are you this careless? And what? Just for some cash?” 

“Well it’s not like I’m not getting anything out of it!” 

“Some lousy sex is worth all the danger—”

_ “It’s not about the sex!”  _ He yells. When the words leave him, he’s left panting and red-faced and so fucking  _ tired  _ of this whole goddamn place. 

Zoro asks, quiet as anything, “What does  _ that  _ mean?” 

And he can’t help it, he just laughs. While Zoro watches, he fishes out a cigarette from his borrowed bra and a lighter from between the folds of his skirt. With that first blissful hit, the nicotine washes away the rest of his rage and his embarrassment, leaving him impossibly tired, impossibly  _ sticky,  _ and impossibly honest. 

“This is something I need. The sex… it gets my head on straight.” He gestures vaguely. “Sorts me out.” 

“Sex ‘sorts you out’?” Zoro repeats skeptically. 

“Yeah. It’s like… there’s no room for anything else, in the heat of it. It’s just your body and another, taking and giving and taking.” A plume of smoke spills from his kiss-bitten, oral-swollen lips. “Takes me out of my head.” After a beat, because it seems important, he adds, staring at Zoro’s blank face, “I don’t usually do it for money. This is… not a common thing. But I figured I could kill two birds with one stone. We needed money, I needed a… a good fuck, and people pay for that.” 

They stand in horrible, heavy silence for what could be a minute or what could be an hour before Zoro speaks. 

“And you need this?” 

Sanji shrugs and laughs out a terrible, self-deprecating sound. “Yeah. Yeah, I need it.”

“Well…  _ don’t,”  _ Zoro commands with all the certainty of a first-mate. It’s final and cutting and exactly what Sanji expected, all things considered. “Figure something else out, I mean it. This isn’t safe. Not for you, not for this crew. It’s not worth it, cook.” 

And  _ gods,  _ he’s just so fucking  _ tired.  _

“Alright, Zoro. Just… alright.” 

* * *

Zoro doesn’t let him out of his sight for the last eight hours of their time on Bake. When Sanji trudges back inside to find Kim and head back to her place so he can get a shower and his clothes back, Zoro follows. When he showers, quick and business like under scalding hot water, Zoro stands outside the door. When they trudge back to the Merry just as the sun is beginning to rise, they trudge  _ together.  _

When Nami asks where all the money came from, Sanji lies and says a couple of his knives went for a good price and a cooking contest rounded out the pile. Zoro, blessedly, doesn’t contradict him. 

They make it out of Bake intact and with little fuss, after the money is handed over. It’s all worth it, every moment of that awful, terrible conversation in the alley and all the accompanying embarrassment and shame, just to see Vivi’s shoulders sag with relief as the island fades from sight. 

Sanji pretends not to see Zoro’s attempt at catching his eye. 

**Author's Note:**

> (and yes, alright, yes, I do plan to finish my other... 10 WIPS.... I'm getting to it guys I swEAR)
> 
> Obligatory [link to my tumblr](https://trixree.tumblr.com/)


End file.
